Spring Term
by butterfly ghost
Summary: A childhood spring time, and a friend.


For a while it seemed safest to remain curled up, protecting his soft bits, but eventually he became aware that the beating had stopped. Carefully he opened his eyes. The spring light seemed even brighter than it had before, and he blinked, waiting to get his vision back.

Things were blurry.

He sat up, and examined himself. His scout's uniform was a sorry mess. The spring thaw had been unkind to the landscape, turning the winter dazzle into slush. Soon summer would redeem it all, and beauty would flourish where mud now oozed, but that wasn't much help to Benny. Muddy and stained with blood, he knew he was in for it now. His Grandmother would take one look at him, and decide it was his fault.

Standing he discovered that he was rather wobbly on his feet. He found this an interesting phenomenon. He took a step, and toppled. He found that both interesting, and painful.

"Oh dear," he muttered, as he got back to his feet. He wished he could curse, even just a little swear, but his Grandmother didn't approve of bad language, and had pretty much "got it out of the boy." How he hated that wooden spoon.

The dizziness had subsided, but the adrenaline was still high enough that he couldn't yet feel the bruises and lumps. What really bothered him was that he hadn't been able to save the sea otters. Or as his best friend insisted on calling them, "baby seals." He'd tried to explain the difference, that these sea otters were really special because they were so far North, and that they needed to eat a lot to stay warm. Quickening to his theme he then proceeded to describe their diet, lifestyle and natural predators, before realising that it didn't matter. Well, not to the other boy, Steve. It mattered to Benny, and obviously would matter to any seals or sea otters that might be listening, but then, Benny was beginning to learn that being too pedantic annoyed one's friends.

Benny had never had a friend before.

He stretched his left arm, and heard a crack in the shoulder. That too was interesting... his shoulder had never cracked before. He waved his arm about, trying to crack it again. Nothing, just a new ache. Glenohumeral joint, he thought, rolling the medical term around in his mind. He spent a lot of time alone in the library, reading. He liked words.

He looked at his hands, and discovered that none of the fingers were broken. Part of him was disappointed, because it meant that he'd still have to practice his instruments for hours on end. It wasn't that he didn't like music... just he wasn't too fond of endless scales and exercises. His Grandmother woke him early each day and gave him half an hour in which he could play what he liked, and an hour and a half each of her own method on the piano and violin to "develop technique." Benny had the sneaking suspicion that things would be much more fun if his Grandfather was teaching him instead. Guitar was fun, because it was their secret... Grandmother had no idea about the folky interludes that occurred when the "boys" went fishing, or she'd never have allowed it.

He looked again at his despoiled scout's uniform. She'd only just made it for him. He was in for it now...

"Squee..."

Benny started, and looked around.

"Squee..."

Eyes widening he darted to the water's edge. He had done his research, and knew what a baby sea otter sounded like.

Sure enough just by the bank there floated an abandoned baby sea otter, its blunt little head poking pathetically from the reddened water. Benny waded in up to his knees before he could rescue the poor creature. Tenderly he gathered it into his hands, and gazed at it, not noticing that his boots were ruined, nor that he was shivering with cold. He lifted the animal to his lips, and dropped the tiniest kiss upon its forehead before tucking it between his shirt and his body. He hugged it to keep it warm all the way home. It wriggled, and squeed, and scratched, then went silent, and Benny grinned at the little life he held against his heart.

Grandmother could punish him, he didn't care.

He was happy.

…

Benny had done Grandmother an injustice. Of course, the moment she saw him her first instinct was to accuse him of some malfeasance, but as he explained what had happened her attitude softened.

"You still need to be punished," she said, and thought. "The fishing trip with your Grandfather this weekend is cancelled," she said. Benny knew to make an expression of deep penitence. If he didn't appear upset enough she'd just think of something else. He knew that she was trying to bring him up "properly," and didn't mean any harm... but still, it was hard sometimes. He looked suitably folorn, and so his Grandmother patted his shoulder (his bad one, unfortunately) and smiled encouragingly.

"Well then, let's see your little friend."

As though revealing treasure Benny lifted the sea otter towards his Grandmother. The body was too big for his hands, and the little animal's back legs drooped. The old woman took the creature in her arms, and held it. Her stern face melted somewhat, and she gave Benny a fond look. He was always in trouble of some sort, got that from the other side of the family no doubt, but at least he had a good heart.

"Let's make it up a nice little nest to keep warm in, and see what the library says about sea otters."

…

That night Benny lay awake, listening to the little creature scampering and squeeing. He smiled at the dark.

...

Steve came round the next day, and gawped openly at Benny's bruises. "Woah, that's like... really cool. How many of them were there?"

Benny looked away. "I didn't exactly count. I think five."

"Did you get any of them back?"

Benny didn't know enough to tell a bragging lie. "No," he said, feeling ashamed of himself.

"I'd have got them back," Steve said, and grinning proceeded to tell Benny exactly how he'd do it.

…

Time passed, and Benny read everything he could about sea otters, made sure his little friend Squee, who he was nearly sure was a girl, ate every three to four hours, and let her swim around the big metal wash tub. Steve didn't seem interested in Squee, which Benny didn't understand. But he didn't pay much attention to his friend's obvious bad mood, he had other things to think about. Grandmother indulged his interest, since it was educational, Grandfather provided fish, and Benny was busy. Grandmother was helping him write and ask for more protection for endangered species. He had just started going to the Scouts meetings, and though it was a small group he didn't feel like he fitted in yet. He liked his new ecology badge for saving Squee though, and wore it with pride. He didn't have time to be lonely. The nightly feeds, and teaching Squee how to swim and fish meant that his time was full. Soon, he knew, the little sea otter would have to be released, but at least, he consoled himself, he'd managed to save one member of her family.

He read about how to organise a "soft release", so that the animal was gradually acclimatised to its natural environment before making a safe escape. It might take weeks, but he could do it. He and Grandfather went with Squee at least once a day to let her splash around in her native water, floating on her back, eating food off her belly. Grandfather would lay his hand on Benny's shoulders, and laugh at her antics. Every day she would learn some new trick. Every day she stayed in a little bit longer, and swam a little bit further before returning to them.

One day she would just swim off by herself and not come back. It made him a little sad to think about it, but it was a good sad. Squee would be free. He laughed at the rhyme.

Squee would be free.

He was happy.

…

School was a place of benevolent boredom. He was ordering texts from the nearest university via his Grandparent's library, but at school they were still doing long division. He didn't know exactly why his Grandmother forced him to go there. She told him that the discipline was good for him, but as discipline was lax he worried that she just wanted to get him out from under her feet.

It was a small school, seven people in his class. There had been six, but then Steve had arrived. Until Steve's arrival Benny hadn't realised that he was the only white kid in the class. Now there were two. Steve saw that as a sign of brotherhood. Benny wasn't quite sure why it was important.

He knew about history of course, and he was proud of Canada. Native peoples were allowed to be Special Constables in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, before brown people in America had got the right to vote. Though he knew it had been a battle in both countries for full suffrage. He'd tried to explain this to Steve, of course, but Steve just blanked out. "Benny, do you ever shut up? You're always spouting like a book." Steve had scowled, and punched his friend hard. Benny winced. He didn't really know why Steve behaved the way he did. It often seemed like the other boy didn't really like him. But he was probably wrong. He supposed that was how friends were.

Benny had never had a friend before.

Today being a Monday they started the school day by singing. The new teacher was a French woman, who taught them to read, and write, and sing, and say their prayers like good Catholics, and count their numbers. She was grey haired and bespectacled, round and soft where Grandmother was all elbows. Mrs Henri liked all the children, but she particularly liked Benton, with his good manners, his copperplate handwriting, and his perfect pitch. One day he had told her the story of how the movers had let go of the piano on the day of its arrival. It had arrived in winter, having travelled along the frozen river, which served as a road when the weather turned. The old woman wept with laughter at Benny's description of how the whole school went dashing across the ice, tumbling and sliding in pursuit of the maverick baby grand, before catching up with it as it came to a clanging halt just outside the church.

"I think it was lonely, and wanted to make friends with the organ," Benny had said, solemnly, with a cheeky twinkle in his eye, and the old lady fell a little bit in love. One day he'd make someone very happy, she was sure of that.

Steve was scowling. Unlike Benny he couldn't sing, and he couldn't see the point of it either. Not only that, he resented the fact that Benny sang like an angel. Here he was, stuck at the end of the world, and the only person who would be friendly with him was the village idiot. And Benny wasn't really his friend anyway, he was always playing with that water ratty thing of his. Steve hated his parents for bringing him here. There was no cinema, no bowling alley, no hamburger joints. Who cared if Benny could sing? He was a dork.

"So, children," Mrs Henri gathered them all in a semi circle around her. "If you remember I gave you a project, to find something interesting in nature, and observe it for a few weeks. So, today is show and tell. Who has something for me?"

Benny, of course, stuck his hand up in the air, practically coming off his seat in his eagerness to be picked. Mrs Henri smiled.

"Yes, Benton?"

Beaming he held out a box, with a woven lattice for a lid.

"This is Squee," he said, and gently lifted the lid. The children bent their heads to see what was in there. The whole room burst into gasps of admiration. Tentatively Aguta asked, "can I hold him?"

"I think she's a she," Benny said, "but yes. She's quite used to people now."

The little girl gathered the bright eyed creature to her, and bent her gaze. Her hair fell in a shining black curtain as she whispered endearments. "Hello Squee," she stroked the blunt nose. "She's beautiful," she told Benny.

"Thank you," he said, as proud as any father.

And Steve scowled, and hated him.

Later, as the class settled, Mrs Henri suggested that the sea otter be kept in her room for the time being. "I'll never get any work out of you if you keep playing with her, and besides, I'm sure after all the excitement she'll want some rest."

"I could just take her home, Mrs Henri," Benton said. "It would only take a minute, and we've got a place for her to swim..."

"Well, later Benny," she told him. "You have to finish your fractions first."

While Benny raced through fractions Steve lifted his hand asked to be excused for the bathroom. Mrs Henri wasn't a strict teacher, so she casually waved him through.

Benny finished the last of his fractions, and sitting bolt upright in his chair stuck his hand up.

"Yes Benny," Mrs Henri laughed, "you can take Squee home now."

Just as he bounced cheerfully to his feet the door swung open. All eyes turned as Steve strode through the door, a grin on his face that didn't touch his eyes. He was swinging something over his head.

Benny had never had a friend.


End file.
